“Can you stabilize?”
“No, Derstu. Three thruster clusters are misfiring. There’s a short somewhere in the control sequence. They’re exacerbating the tumble.”
“Cut them out of the power grid and reassess. And Kivits, put our javelins back into hibernation!”
“Already engaged.”
Another jolt shook the floor beneath their feet, not as sharp or hard as the first, but even more alarming, because as soon as it ended, so did the artificial gravity. Everyone scrambled to find purchase on their chairs, footrests, or the ribs of their alcoves to avoid floating free in the cavern.
“Now what?” Thuk demanded angrily.
“Source energy’s down. Switched to backups. Gravity system resetting.”
“Leave it until we know what’s happening, we may need the power elsewhere. Why’d source energy shut down?” A new, sharp alert tone answered Thuk’s question.
“Rotting light leak! Our shield cone is breached,” Hurg shouted.
“How bad?”
“Contamination alarms in caverns from ribs L-127 through L-103 and spreading forward.”
Thuk shivered. Rotting light had already flooded almost a fifth of the habitable caverns starting at their cone shield on up. If it reached the central nexus, or the farms …
“Seal everything forward of rib L-90. Vent unoccupied caverns into space.”
“And the occupied caverns?” Hurg asked, the rest of the question left to hang in the air between them.
“Seal them and shut them off from the air-changers. They can go into torpor and last a day or more on the air they have.”
“If they’ve not already been poisoned by rotting light,” Kivits said.
“One thing at a time. This is the most we can do for them right now.”
“Derstu,” the tiller attendant called out. “I can’t restart the engines with the shield cone breached, not even if we get source energy back. The emergency systems are in lockdown and I can’t supersede.”
“Not even physically?”
“The physical supersede is inside the contaminated zone.”
Naturally, Thuk thought. That was it, then. They weren’t going to fix the shield cone and restore maneuverability before the Chusexx floated across the treaty line and into the waiting claws of the human cruiser. Unless …
“Do we have enough reserve to spin a seedpod?”
“To where?”
“Nowhere, just put one up and keep it up until we make repairs. It’ll keep the humans’ light-spears and javelins from carving us up like a game animal.”
“I’m sorry, Derstu, but no. We’re short the necessary energy by an order of magnitude.”
Thuk’s hopes sank into the abyss. He was out of ideas, and rapidly running out of time.
“Hurg, please open a link to the human ship. Ears only.”
“A link?” Kivits said. “What are you going to do?”
“Sing for our lives, Dulac. Hurg, are we ready?”
“Yes, Derstu. Link open.”
Thuk steadied himself in his chair with his midhands. The humans couldn’t see him through an ears-only link, but it was more for his confidence than anything. He needed to feel grounded among the chaos and calamity, even if it was illusionary.
Wincing with each breath through the pain in his side, he began. “We are the harmony of the Chussex. We announce a…” What was that senseless human expression for an emergency? “… day in may. Rotting light is leaking into our caverns, and source energy has failed. Please do not throw your light-spears or javelins. Our bellies face the sky.”
Thuk made a decapitating gesture with a blood-claw on his primehand. Hurg cut off the cavern’s ears.
“Did it take?”
“Yes, Derstu. Your song captured.”
“Set it on a loop and let it sing until they respond. Are those cursed javelins in hibernation yet?”
“They’re sleeping, Derstu,” Kivits confirmed.
Thuk exhaled despite the pain in his side. The last thing he wanted were live javelins, in hand, just waiting for a lucky shot from the human ship to detonate their cores and blow the ship in half for them. If he was going to die, he’d prefer his shell pierced by his enemy’s weapons instead of being run through by his own.
“Thank you, Dulac.”
“What do we do now?” Hurg asked for the entire cavern.
“The simplest thing anyone can do, Attendant,” Thuk said. “Await death or deliverance.”
“They’re still coming, mum,” Mattu said. “EM emissions just ticked up a bit. They may have gotten auxiliary power up, but it’s still way below baseline. And they’re still leaking gamma.”
Susan glanced up at the countdown above the plot. Five minutes until the Xre ship crossed the line. Five minutes until she was obligated by her orders to kill them.
“How much gamma, Scopes?” she asked. “Lethal?”
“I don’t know what a lethal dose for Xre is, mum. I can loop Doc Cargill in and ask her?”
“No time,” Miguel said. “Mum, I don’t want to intrude on your thoughts, but our orders are clear and unambiguous. We must torch them if they cross the Red Line. That’s how it’s been for seventy years.”
“We also have a duty to respond to distress calls, of any flag. Which takes precedence? I think that’s my call to make, that’s why they gave me the hat.”
“They could still be playing possum, mum. We could fake up every part of this ‘accident’ with a couple hours’ notice. Hell, that may even be why they took so long to respond. They’re setting us up for an ambush.”
“Exactly,” Nesbit broke in. “They’re playing us. Listen to your XO.”
“They’re half again our tonnage.” Susan waved a hand at the real-time rendering of their foe. “Why would they need to ambush us?”
“We’re not exactly a soft target like that fleet tender was, mum. We’ve already taken a shot at them once. They know we’ll fight. If the tables were turned, would you do anything less than absolutely maximize our tactical advantage before committing?”
“No,” Susan permitted. “And yet…”
Susan’s training and sense of duty crashed headlong against her empathy. Yes, this wily Xre commander had already outsmarted her once with clever tricks, but that was just it. From the start of this whole operation, they’d been bold, ordering an armed drone into her space to destroy platforms under her nose. They’d played on her belief no one would have the cast-iron tits to cross the line when
